If you have Android 6.0 or higher, then you can show the battery percentage within the battery icon that sits in the status bar.
One of my favorite features of custom ROMs and the Xposed Framework is the ability to show the battery percentage inside the status bar. Sure, you can swipe down from the top of the screen to see what percentage the battery is at in most of the recent versions of Android, but that is a hassle. The feature should be there in the status bar instead of just a vague battery meter. Now, Google has talked about why they don’t allow this before.
I believe this was brought up around the time that KitKat was released. The company said that keeping this information there should tax the batter too much.
What happens is, the software has to keep polling the battery fuel gauge to find out what the exact percentage is. I haven’t been able to do thorough tests with it on and off, but I don’t see it effecting the battery life dramatically at all. Granted, Google has ways to test the battery usage of various features and they probably did see a negative impact on the battery because of this feature. The reason why I love Android so much is that we get choice as to what we like and what we don’t like. So being able to enable this feature because we feel the usefulness is better than the extra 10-30 minutes of talk time(which would be like 5 minutes or so of screen on time) is something that users should have the choice to do.
It seems that Google agrees because now the feature is here, even though it’s just hidden in a secret menu. This tip is a continuing of the series I’ve been writing about all week with the System UI Tuner. After showing you how to enable it, I then showed you how you can use it to modify the Quick Settings tiles to your liking. The next day I showed you that you can use the System UI Tuner to remove unwanted icons that sit in the top right of the status bar. Today I want to show you that the System UI Tuner can also be used to show the battery percentage within the battery icon of the Status Bar.
How to Show Battery Percentage
- Enable the System UI Tuner
- Go into the Settings App
- Tap on the ‘System UI Tuner’ Option
- Toggle On the Show Embedded Battery Percentage Option
Explanation
Just like the other three tips, that really is all there is to it. The biggest part of these tips is actually knowing about the features within the System UI Tuner and knowing how to access it. Once you get into the System UI Tuner settings menu, you’ll see the feature you need to toggle on right in the middle of the page. Simply tap on the toggle to enable it and then you’ll instantly see the percentage of your battery within the battery icon in the status bar. You can see an example of this at the very top of this article as this is what it will look like when you turn it on with an almost full battery.
Now, I do have to say that this feature can be annoying at times. When you get around the 50% mark, it can be hard to read exactly what percentage you’re at simply by glancing at the screen. It’s not the end of the world or anything, but it could have been implemented better. With Samsung devices, you can enable a feature that will put the battery percentage right next to the battery icon. This makes the numbers bigger and doesn’t create an issue when you’re at the 50% mark. Some custom ROMs and Xposed Modules will give you a unique looking battery option that will use a circle to represent what your battery is at, and then put the percentage numbers within that circle. This is my favorite way of implementing this feature.
Here’s an example of what that looks like. I enable this on my Nexus 6P with the custom ROM called Pure Nexus Experience. However, this is also available in other custom ROMs as well as Xposed Modules too. I’ll be showing you how to enable this type of battery percentage indicator in a future tip article.
I want to know what your favorite way to check the battery percentage is on your Android device. Do you use a feature in a custom ROM like me? Do you opt for an Xposed Module? Do you use a widget? Or do you simply use the standard battery icon? Let me know your favorite solution in the comments section below.
